This Day in Coast Guard History – Nov. 12

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

1882-On 11 November the steam-barge H.C. Schnoor struck on the bar off Alcona at 11 o’clock at night about three hundred yards from the shore. A strong southeast gale prevailed at the time, and there was a heavy sea. At 8 o’clock in the morning of the next day (November 12) a team came with the news from Alcona to Station No. 5, Tenth District, (Sturgeon Point), about four miles and a half from the scene of the disaster. After a half-hour for preparation, the keeper was on the road with two teams, one bearing the wreck ordnance and the other the surfboat. An hour later they arrived and launched the surfboat. The surf, however, was so heavy that they failed to get alongside the barge and they were obliged to return. The wreck-gun was then used. The gear, having been set up, the mate was brought ashore by the breeches-buoy. As the crew was obliged to work from a point of land so narrow that they could not spread sufficiently to keep the lines apart, they twisted. The heavy current caused the lee part of the whip-line to foul with the hawser. Before the lines could be cleared, however, the wind changed and beat down the sea. The surfboat was launched and took the captain (who had been on shore at Alcona) and the mate back to the barge. The immediate danger ended with the subsidence of the sea. The life-saving crew returned to the station.